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Western Maryland, Liberal, Democrat (you have to work within the two party system these days if you want to get anywhere)

I say, if, in the process of trading in the car, the dealer informs me that I have a parking ticket which must be paid before the tags and title and so forth are granted, then I will pay it the ticket, otherwise...

Ha! My parents found the ticket sitting on my dresser and now they're demanding I pay it. "You can't just not pay the ticket!" "Really? It seems to be working pretty well."

If I have an unpaid parking ticket (parking meter violation) and I go to trade in my car, will I have to pay that before the dealer will buy back the car? The ticket was originally only for $10, but I think it's up to $35, since it's more than 30 days past the required payment date. If I just...

Wow. Thanks a lot.

Yes, it's my poem. I just made it up. I have a Polish friend who is valedictorian this year and she asked me to help her write her speech. I told her that she should close her speech with a meaningless Polish poem, read as though it's very moving. I wanted to surprise her tomorrow and show her...

Wow. It's interesting to see that my thread sparked so much discussion. Anyway, could someone, please, translate the following into Polish: It doesn't matter what I say here Because none of you speak Polish So none of you know what I'm saying All I need to do is speak very strongly...

I could use your help with a little translation if you do. That's an English into Polish translation. Thanks.

That'd be great. Yes, please. Though Tolstoy was a Christian. And in response to your question, it's just a more formal graduation ceremony. I don't really understand it myself. But apparently they're trying to get both a minister and a rabbi to speak.

Haha. That's pretty damn awesome.

Since it is "highly recommended" that all seniors attend the baccalaureate service after my high school graduation, and since the religious nature of such a service makes me uncomfortable, I was thinking of asking the principal to include a secular reading at the baccalaureate. If she agrees...

Well, that's only in your opinion. I'd rather read all day than do anything else. And I think sports are a huge waste of time.

Try telling that to my girlfriend. Essentially, unimportant when it comes to understanding (or constructing a theory of) consciousness. Isn't that what we've been arguing about for seven pages worth of posts now?

I give up.

The real issue that divides us is this: Is subjective experience important? Some of us say yes, some of us say no. We should just agree to disagree. :cool:

Geez, you have a real hypothetical-scenario-involving-a-mad-scientist fetish, don't you?

You said, "How does descrimination arise if the initial state is one marked by a complete lack of discrimination?" I simply suggested that built-in features of language could allow for rapid development of language, and thus we could do away with the idea that one begins in a state "marked by a...

But what if we assume that there are certain built-in features of language that allow for a kind of rough discrimination? Hmm, where'd I put my copy of Chomsky's, On Language?

I'm sorry. The confusion here is my fault. When I say that such differences hardly seem to matter, the differences I'm referring to deal with concrete concepts (like color). Two people may possibly experience different internal conscious perceptions when looking at a particular color (Person #1...

Okay, here goes: First of all, let me try to clarify what I've been proposing: 1) Possible differences in "internal conscious perception" between two people aren't worth considering, because all that matters is that agreement can be reached, allowing the two people to achieve some kind of...

I feel that I might have dug myself into a hole here, but I'll try to work my way out of it tomorrow by responding to everyone's criticisms. And to think, I just wanted to make one post about the unimportant distinction between internal conscious perception and linguistic description. My head...

The reason I say that a blind man can't have knowledge of the color blue is because knowing what blue is depends on being able to use blue in a variable linguistic manner. That is to say, being able to recognize the color blue and then being able to apply that information to achieve some end. Go...

That conclusion only follows if you accept that a blind man knows something about the color blue. I don't think that he does, and I've argued as much in this thread. I don't think the distinction exists.

Oh, okay, good. Let me just breathe a sigh of relief. It's a good thing God was only a real bastard some 2000 years ago, and then only to the Jews. I'm glad he's come around now.

After re-reading Confutatis' post, I don't think I missed what he was trying to say. It seems to me that Confutatis is saying there are certain intrinsic properties in consciousness directly related to the concepts that we acquire through experience. But I think he's making an unfortunate...

I agree that that probably is how Stevie Wonder worked visual information, including color, into his songs. Knowing that color plays an important part in people's lives, he asked friends what they associated with certain colors and emotions and so forth. But that doesn't mean that Stevie Wonder...

I still don't see how this is in any way true. What concepts can a blind man have about the color blue without experiencing it (through the senses)? How can he talk about the color blue? And let us all just keep in mind that we're debating a question with very little, if any, real importance...

Alright, since my parents loaded my picture on the computer so they could post it on my brother's website, I've decided to try this out. Keep in mind, this is my senior picture (the one that will be in my school's yearbook). I don't make a habit of wearing a tuxedo, but I think I look pretty...

What exactly does a blind man know about the color blue?

I don't intend to speak for RageSk8, he's perfectly capable of answering LW Sleeth's criticisms on his own, but for my part I must respond to the following: I don't deny that such conscious states exist (nothing in my first response would suggest that), I simply think that the most...

Well, I just happened to stumble upon this thread while doing a search, and I have to argue a point here: Such differences in "internal conscious perceptions", whatever they may be, hardly seem important to me. As long as colors can be agreed upon, thus allowing people to create...

"If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever." -Woody Allen

I prefer tea. During the week, I drink about 5 cups a day; on the weekend, it's more like 8-10 cups a day. I'm drinking a cup right now actually. Interesting side note, I remember hearing an interview on NPR about a month or so ago with a foreign newspaper correspondant in Iraq who would drink...

Too busy masturbating.

That is a Woody Allen quote.

Anybody have a copy of the play? I'm hoping someone could type out the first part of Proctor's speech during Act IV, when he realizes that he can't lie to save himself. It starts off like: "Because it is my name! Because I can never have another in my life! Because I am not worth the dust on...

Does existentialism have to do with idealism? I mean, in the sense that nothing exists outside of the minds' awareness of it? Sort of like Berkeley's idea? Do they have anything to do with each other?

Well, I hope my post wasn't quite that bad. Dan Quayle. Republicans. [Sigh]

Ha! Shows where my two years of high school Spanish got me. I can't even recognize the language. It's from Graham Greene's, Monsignor Quixote. It's a modern retelling of Cervantes' classic tale. Anyway, the Monsignor goes out on a road trip across Spain with the communist ex-mayor of El Toboso...

Someone translate this for me if you will: Que le den por el saco al obispo.

Textbooks...[sighs and throws hands up in the air]. I asked my teacher and he said the same thing. Thanks for clearing that up.

From my biology textbook: Most of the variation in the length of the cell cycle from one organism or tissue to the next occurs in the G-1 phase. Cells often pause in G-1 before replication and enter a resting state called G-0 phase; they may remain in this phase for days to years before...

Can someone tell me some of the hypothesized causes of why a cell will enter into the resting G0 phase (that's, G-zero phase) during mitosis? My AP bio. textbook doesn't say why the cell will sometimes pause before DNA replication.

I too have had similar thoughts to that of what your friend said.

'Met up with him'? What a ridiculous phrase to use.

gibberish, actually.

I just thought about this a little and I can pretty much answer it with a resounding no. Our lives leave records beyond the memories we give others. The children we bear, our acts which effect the world (though which are not necessarily remembered by anyone, or remembered as being done by us)...

Basically that's how I got thinking about it. I was wondering how existence could be given meaning if when you're gone no one remembers you. Isn't being dead and entirely forgotten essentially the same as having never existed? Anyway, I'm glad you and Mentat were able to point out...

It is, except it's spelled philosophizing. That's true. Though does idealism always entail solipsism?

Being as it's summer and I don't have school I've been spending everyday -- and, recently, every night because I haven't been sleeping well -- reading. Well, I had an idea the other night, so I wanted to see what everyone else thought, and find out if I came up with something novel or if I'm...